Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-07-26
THE MIND CURE.
WHAT is ASSERTED BY THE APOs-
TIES OF THIS OPTIMISTIC CREED.

The System Held in High Esteem at
Ancient Athens-Mind and Matter.
Nervousness and Hysteria-A Hopeful
Sien-Semi-Invalids.
Shakespeare, the Universal. seems to
have formulated the theory of the new
school of healing when he makes Hamlet
say that ''there is nothing either good or
had but thinking makes it sou Perhaps
we should not speak of that system as
''new'' that would appear to have been
in high esteem at ancient Athens, and that
had an extraordinary vogue in the east at
the beginning Of our era. At first thought
the present interest and excitement In the
subject seem unreal and anachronistic.
But, after all, is it not natural and fitting
that the mind should be most easily and
absorbingly occupied by matters pertain
ing to the mind itself?
To accept the doctrine of the mind cure.
as we understand it, is to believe that
health, sanity and virtue are the normal
attributes, the birthright possession, of
man. Disease, dementia, sin, are negative
conditions which it is weak, dishonorable
and sinful to harbor. "Refuse to believe
in illness, deny pain, resist weakness"
say the apostles Of this optimistic creed,
''and illness, pain and weakness vanish;
because they exist only in your thought
of them. Suffering is simply that state of
mind that makes you imagine that you
suffer. You have only to get above suf-
fering."
The influence of mind over matter
hardly needs assertion. The old illustra-
tons Of the moral PHILOSOPHERS alone are
proof enough. The miner dying of fright
on finding his sustaining rope too short,
in the pitch dark mine, with his feet in
reality six inches from the ground; the
blindfolded man fainting in the belief
that he was bleeding to death, when only
warm water was trickling down his arm;
the workman undergoing the horrible
manifestations of cholera because he was
told falsely that a cholera victim had Just
died in the same bed-show the effect of
belief The madness of the insane, which
Is but perverted and exaggerated will
power gives them the strength of dozen
sane men. And quite lately the shock of
the earthquake in the Riviera reused q
bedridden woman to rush down four
flights of stairs to the safety of the street
WHAT THE LANCET SAYS.
Even The London Lancet, which is
nothing il not conservative, asserts that
in some cases mind has such an effect
upon an organic disease as to cause new
and healthy formations. This, it will be
seen, goes far beyond the old admission
that nervousness and ''hysteria'' were
subject to mental influences. There is no
doubt that the tendency Of the medical
profession has been decidedly material
istic, and that any leaning toward spirit
ual methods, as shown in magnetism, -
"hypnotism, ''clairvoyance'' and their
like has been made at once disreputable,
SO that any germ of truth they may have
possessed was smothered out of sight.
Yet the little we know of the potency of
the mind over the body shows us that
there must be an illimitabie field for it's
action, if we could but find out how to set
it at work. And it would seem that our
help must come chiefly from within, not
from without "'Tis in ourselves that
we are thus or thus"
1t appears to us q hopeful sign Of a
more wholesome life that large classes of
women take time and spend money to
hear this theory Of the reality of spiritual
existence eXpounded. After the poet,
they are discovering that ''soul is form,
and doth the body make" They are
semi invalids. They have suffered. They
have allowed their thoughts to dwell
upon their pains and limitations until
these have come largely to fill their men
tai horizon. Their talk is of sickness.
Even young girls, among the well to do
and idle classes, compare symptoms and
suggest diagnoses as staple topics of con-
versation. Nothing could be worse, it
seems to US, on the score of good taste or
of good health. AS dwelling upon ones
griefs magnifies them, SO dwelling upon
ones pains magniies them. If the mind
cure can be made to work upon these
| subjects it must restore to activity ener-
gies worse than wasted; it would save
time and money; it would make a gray
world into Il joyous one; it would multi
| ply past calculation the sum of human
appiness.-narDer's bazar.